Danang-Chulai Airbase-An Hoa Combat Base: Fullday

Danang-An Hoa Combat Base-Chulai Airbase (L)

At 7.30am, you will be met our guide at the hotel lobby to drive to My Khe Beach (Formerly well-known as China Beach or R&R Beach). You can see the former US Navy Hospital by the beach where the series of movie China Beach took place . It now belongs to Vietnamese Navy. Take a walk along the beach or swim if you wish to before we head to Marble Mountain Airfield Facility. Then We will walk up the mountain by steps to the cave on top which was used by VC as emergency hospital during Tet Offensive 1968. Marble Mountains are also the religous centre of buhdist people in this area with many budhist temples on top.

A quick stop at the bottom of the mountain to visit the marble carving village.

Leaving Danang area, we drive to An Hoa Combat Base after lunch along the way. We will visit Liberty Bridge and Football Island. An Hoa Base is now pretty much gone but you still see the remains of the runway, have some times free to walk around the base. The base was first used by the Marines in January 1966 during Operation Mallard when the 1st Battalion, 12th Marines established a firebase there while the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines and a Company from the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines swept the surrounding area. 20 April 1966 the Marines returned to An Hoa on Operation Georgia, the 12th Marines reestablished a firebase while the 3rd Battalion 9th Marines provided security, the base would become permanent at this time as the Marines sought to pacify the area.

Back to highway 1, we drive about 60km south of An Hoa Base toward Chulai Airbase which was operated by the US Marine Corps between 1965 and 1970.

At first, only a “short airfield for tactical support (SATS)” was installed. The SATS consisted of a 1,200 m runway with an aluminum surface of interlocking lightweight metal alloy planking, a catapult and a carrier deck-type arresting gear. It also included a tactical airfield fuel dispensing system. The base of soft sand at Chu Lai caused much difficulty with the installation of the SATS, but the first landing of an A-4 Skyhawk was made on 1 June 1965, by Colonel John D. Noble, Commanding Officer of MAG-12 from Marine All- Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 242 (VMA-225) landed. The aircraft took off using jet-assisted takeoff rockets on the partially completed runway as the Seabees continued lengthening the runway. By mid-October 1965, the base was home to more than 80 A-4 Skyhawks from MAG-12.